


The Shaft

by nanda (nandamai)



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Bad Diplomacy, Episode: s05e03 Ascension, F/M, Humor, Team, Trapped, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-02-20
Updated: 2007-02-20
Packaged: 2017-11-15 14:17:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/528200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nandamai/pseuds/nanda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alien dope + 20-foot pit = tingling.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Shaft

**Author's Note:**

> Old-fashioned Sam/Jack UST, now with extra added snippiness. Written for the 2007 Sam/Jack [Carnivale of Squee](http://community.livejournal.com/carnivalofsquee).
> 
> Thanks to poohmusings for the beta.

She was at the bottom of a pit and her CO was on top of her. And he was so not at the top of her list at the moment. _So_ not.

“This is not happening,” he groaned. “Easy diplomatic mission my ass!”

His ass was currently pressing her hips into the ground, and not in a good way. All things considered, Sam thought breathing would be a lot more fun. “Um, sir?”

“Carter?” Colonel O’Neill scrambled off her, onto his knees. “I thought the ground was just rocky.”

“That’s very flattering, sir.” Finally able to move, she rolled painfully onto her side. Nothing was broken — the ground was covered by fallen and somewhat moldy leaves — but her wrists were sore from stopping her fall, her breasts and ribs ached, and the palms of her hands burned. She remembered grasping for roots in the packed dirt walls as she fell.

“What are you doing down here?” he asked sharply.

Sam rolled her eyes and sat up. “I was walking next to you, sir.” 

“It’s no use if we both fall in, Carter!”

In fact, she had to have fallen first to end up underneath him, but she decided not to mention that. “Did you hit your head, sir?” she asked instead. Not that it would take an injury to turn him into a first-class jerk on this mission. 

He touched his skull experimentally, his eyes rolling up as if he could see back there. “I think I banged it on yours. Are you all right?”

“I’m not sure. An Air Force colonel fell on me.” Sam examined her hands and started picking bits of dirt and leaves from the scrapes.

“Watch the tone, Major.”

She wanted to throttle him. He’d been impossible almost since they’d stepped through the gate, keeping them up half the night complaining about their hosts, picking a fight with Daniel over breakfast, and now insisting on recon outside the village even though the Egon had told them to stay put. He’d ordered Sam to speak up, then to be quiet; he’d told her her hair was inching towards non-regulation length and she’d better get it cut ASAP; he’d argued over every detail as she explained why the naquadah from this planet was much more valuable than any they’d previously found. His mood had rubbed off on all of them. Even Teal’c had been bitchy that morning.

“Easy diplomatic mission,” he mumbled.

“We did know the Egon didn’t want us looking around, sir.”

“Yeah, well, they’re paranoid.”

True. On the other hand: “They’ll be more paranoid when they find out what we were doing,” she said.

The colonel frowned. “There’s that. Or maybe they put this trap here because they _knew_ their paranoia would make us suspicious and they wanted to catch us in the act.”

“Yeah, I’m sure that’s it,” she said.

“I told you to watch the tone.”

“Then you watch yours!” Crap.

She was going to get fired.

“Excuse me?” he asked.

“Nothing, sir.”

He just grunted in reply. Then he looked at her hands, looked up, and looked at her hands again. Sam looked up, too. They were about twenty feet below the surface. She might be able to climb from his shoulders, using the roots she hadn’t been able to catch on the way down, but that was iffy with her hands in this condition. The walls didn’t look too stable, either.

But still. “I can do it,” she said.

Colonel O’Neill studied her hands again. “No, you can’t,” he said bluntly, fingering his radio. 

“Sir, Daniel’s in a meeting, you shouldn’t –”

Too late. “Daniel, Teal’c, come in.” He let up the switch and waited a few seconds. “Daniel, Teal’c, what’s your status?”

The radio just crackled. The colonel took it out of its pocket and shook it. Then he shook it harder.

Sam eyed the dirt walls and winced. She could see small grains of the most valuable mineral in the galaxy glistening in the soil. “Sir, it’s possible that the high levels of naquadah are interfering with the signal.”

That earned her a glare. “Why didn’t you tell me that before?”

“We weren’t underground before!”

He stared at her coldly for a full minute. Then he zeroed in on her shoulder and tried her radio. She had to work hard not to shrug him off. 

“They won’t even notice we’re gone until after dark,” he said. 

Sam went back to removing debris from her hands. “I know, sir,” she said. 

“The radio interference will slow down the search.” 

“I know that, too, sir.” 

“They won’t be able to start before dawn.”

“ _Yes_ , sir.”

He stared her down before saying, “Careful there.”

Sam just barely managed not to reply. And because he didn’t seem interested in doing it, she mentally tallied her supplies. Colonel O’Neill had insisted they wouldn’t need packs because they’d only be gone a few hours, and besides, it might make the Egon suspicious. But Sam had brought a light pack anyway, just to be contrary. She unclipped it with some difficulty, found the medkit, and soaked some gauze in antiseptic. 

Colonel O’Neill was watching her intently as she cleaned her left hand. The right would be more difficult. “Give me that,” he said after a few seconds.

She handed him the gauze and held her breath against the sting. His fingers moved softly on hers as he bandaged the hand, then reached for the other. It took her by surprise and she hissed in pain when he turned the wrist.

“I fell on it,” she said before he could ask. “It’s just sore.”

He scowled and said nothing. Finally he gave her hand back and they both sat silently for a while, their backs against the wall. She looked at him sideways, noticing his cheek just starting to stubble, his fingers restless on his thigh.

“I have three powerbars,” Sam volunteered, patting the pocket in question with her bandaged hand. “You?”

“Water,” he said. “At least we won’t croak.”

There was that.

He eyed the pack, which had ended up on the ground on his other side. “Don’t suppose you’re hiding a couple thermal blankets in there?” he asked. Sam decided to take that as an admission that he’d been wrong this morning, which gave her a minute degree of satisfaction.

“One,” she said. The weather was temperate but wet; they’d be cold during the night.

“How about a Gameboy?”

She looked up dully. “What?”

“In your pack. Got a Gameboy?”

“No, sir.”

“Deck of cards?” 

Did they have to play this game again? “No, sir.”

“Travel chess?”

“ _No_ , sir.”

“Travel backgammon?”

She glared instead of answering. Her head was going to explode. If she was lucky, it’d take him out with her.

“Am I bugging you, Carter?”

“A little bit, sir.”

“You haven’t exactly been a model of human kindness yourself today,” he said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’ve been a little snippy, don’t you think?”

What she thought about was pots and kettles. “No more than you, sir,” she said. Her shoulder accidentally brushed his as she searched for a comfortable position. He jumped away as if she’d scorched him.

“Geez, stay on your own side, Carter!”

There was a profound silence during which Sam recalled hundreds of car trips with her brother. “Did you just tell me to stay on my side of the backseat, Colonel?”

“I …” He looked as confused as she suddenly felt. “I think I did.”

“Okay,” she said, her mind working as quickly as she could make it, which, now that she was paying attention, was much less quick than usual. “I think there’s something wrong here.”

“Yes. You’re being snippy.”

“ _Sir_.”

“Sorry.” Amazingly, he did sound contrite. 

She kept thinking. It took a while. “I think we’ve been drugged,” she said finally.

Colonel O’Neill wrinkled his nose. “I don’t feel high. Do you feel high?”

Sam gritted her teeth to keep from responding the way she wanted to. They had to figure this out, not fall into another petty little fight. “Sir, just think about how we’re both behaving. It’s not like us.” With each other, at any rate. The colonel could go on with Daniel for days, sometimes just because they were bored.

His eyes went blank for a moment. “Huh. I think we’ve been drugged, Carter.” 

“ _Thank_ you,” she said.

“Why would they give us something that makes us assholes?”

Sam chose, wisely, to ignore the implicit insult. He’d included himself in it, too. “To sabotage the negotiations, maybe?”

“I knew I didn’t trust those guys.”

The pieces kept slotting together in Sam’s head. “And that’s another thing. Paranoia.”

“Oh, come on, you have to be paranoid around these guys! They’re like tall, beady-eyed rats.” He sat up straighter to make his point, and dislodged some dirt from the wall. It fell on Sam’s head.

“Maybe this is what makes them paranoid,” she said. “It might occur naturally in their diet, and we just happened to consume it.”

“Never attribute to innocence that which can easily be explained by evil, Carter.”

“Good point,” she said.

“But we’ve established that it’s completely their fault, right?”

Sam shrugged. “I suppose we can resist it, now that we know what’s causing it.”

“I suppose,” he said with a dramatic sigh. “It’d probably help if we could concentrate on something else.”

The shadows were just starting to lengthen, stealing light from the trap. “Probably,” Sam said. She checked her watch; dawn was many hours away.

She offered him a powerbar. He said no. He offered some water. She said no.

This was going well.

The air cooled as they sat there awkwardly, and a dark cloud passed over the small oval of sky they could see. Sam looked at the colonel and they both looked up. She got a raindrop in the eye. 

Then another one, on her hand.

And another.

Oh, crap.

“Oh, crap,” Colonel O’Neill said. “Well, there’s something to concentrate on.”

She could already feel the heavy drops soaking through her cap, and she shivered. 

“The blanket, sir?”

“Oh. Right,” he said. He dug it out, gave her one corner, and they flung it over their heads.

Sam watched miserably as the rotten leaves soaked up the rain; the ground had been damp to begin with. The colonel moved closer to her.

“Let’s hope the walls don’t collapse on us,” he said. 

The pounding on the blanket got so loud that Sam had to raise her voice. “Thank you so much for that thought, sir.”

“Resisting the dope, Carter. Remember?”

“I think there’s a special rain clause.”

Water poured off the edge of the blanket onto Sam’s leg. She huddled so close to the colonel that their arms, holding up the near-useless shelter, were practically entwined.

“I think what we need is an anti-rain dance,” he said.

“Did they teach you that in the Boy Scouts, sir?”

He drew his legs in as much as possible, which couldn’t be good for his knees. “Yes, Carter, they taught me that in the Boy Scouts.”

“I’m all ears,” she said. “Is there a song?”

“Ooga-ooga-ooga?”

Sam laughed, startling herself. She held out a palm to check. “I don’t think it worked, sir.”

For a few minutes it was too loud to talk. At least one of them was warm, Sam thought, as his body heat radiated out to her. She snuggled into his side, not caring if it was appropriate or not. 

Wordlessly, the colonel laid an arm across her shoulders. When the rain had slowed down a bit, he said, “How do you feel about mental chess, Carter?”

***

After three games, she was ready to kill him. Or kiss him. She wasn’t sure.

“Carter! Will you move already?”

“I’m thinking,” she said. Plus, at some point, she’d noticed that he smelled really good. It was throwing her off.

“Sure you are.”

“How’s that paranoia going, sir?”

He sighed. “Resisting the dope,” he said. “Just say no.”

Sam silently said no, called out a quick move just to get it over with, and enjoyed the brief peace that followed. 

The rain had stopped during the second game, and they now sat on the blanket instead of under it, but they were still shoulder to shoulder. He shouldn’t smell so good — they should both probably stink like wet dogs by now — but he did. She’d spent the last hour or so working out which scent was his shampoo, which his aftershave, and which just him, and she hadn’t allowed herself to do that in a very long time.

Colonel O’Neill grumbled and shifted his weight, straightening first one leg and then the other, massaging both knees. She could hear them cracking.

“Ow,” she said. 

“Tell me about it.”

“You want some Advil?” She started to reach across him for the medkit, but he grabbed her arm to stop her.

“I’m fine,” he said. His voice sounded strained. He told her his move, and she had to think for a second to understand what he was talking about.

Oh. Chess.

She caught a hint of his sweat, and wanted very much to taste it.

“Carter?” The colonel squirmed, scrubbing his palms on his thighs. “Your move.”

“I know,” she said. 

“Carter, just sit.”

“What?” 

“You’re fidgeting,” he said. 

“So are you,” she said. 

“Yeah, but I fidget all the time.”

“That’s your excuse?”

He groaned. Sam heard fabric rubbing on fabric, wondered which body parts were involved. It was nearly dark, so she couldn’t tell for sure. “Look, I’ll stop if you will,” he said. “I think.”

“That sounds promising.” 

“Carter!”

She just sat. 

The colonel didn’t move, either, which was just fine until it occurred to her that all she could hear was his breathing. He took deep, measured breaths, like he was counting them off, and she found herself matching his timing. Which brought on a whole lot of images she should never think about. 

“Stop it!” she said, and froze.

“Excuse me?”

“Um. I was talking to myself, sir,” she said.

“I worry about you, Carter.”

“Likewise, sir.”

They fell silent again and Sam imagined how her legs would feel wrapped around his back. What was _wrong_ with her? It wasn’t like they’d never had to conserve heat before, though it had been a while.

Colonel O’Neill shifted uncomfortably, as if he could hear her thoughts. Or as if he were having some of his own, which was worse.

The chess match seemed to be over. She had no idea where they’d left off, anyway. “So,” she said, trying to come up with a distraction before she gave in and licked his neck, “how do you feel about the proposal to move the archaeology labs up to 17?”

He blinked at her, slowly. Then he said, “I’m all for it. It’ll be harder to track Daniel down, though.”

“But he’ll be closer to Teal’c's quarters.”

“Yeah, that’ll be good.”

Sam was stumped again. She thought hard. “Have you talked to Teal’c much? Since Apophis?” She didn’t like to mention the brainwashing part.

“A little,” he said. His feet twitched. “Mostly I ask him how he’s doing and he looks at me like I’m from Mars.”

And that was it. She was out of small talk. They’d spent so little time together over the past year, and virtually none outside work. The last mission that had kept them alone together for any length of time was probably P4X-347, when they were recovering from their addiction to the Light, and even then, they’d both felt the need for a chaperone. 

Which was a lot like now, actually.

“Oh, no,” she said.

The colonel tensed up beside her. “Oh, no, what?”

This would be fun to explain. “Sir, do you think … maybe … the drug is affecting you in any way beyond the aggression?”

“Maybe,” he said carefully. “Do you feel kind of … strange?”

“What kind of strange?”

He frowned as he tried to come up with a word. “Um, tingly? Maybe tingly.”

“Oh. Then yes.” Especially when his arm moved against hers. Like that. She heard him hiss in a breath, and then he held his whole body very still.

“Okay,” he said, “why would they give us a drug that makes us annoying _and_ tingly?”

Sam took a wild guess. “The tingling could be the point, and the aggression a side effect.”

He thought about that. Sam knew he was remembering the Egon’s short tempers. “I don’t think I’m buying that one, Carter,” he said.

“Me neither,” Sam admitted.

“What if …” he said. “Maybe trying to suppress the aggression causes …”

“Very bad things?” she supplied.

The colonel turned to face her. “Bad, unpleasant bad?”

“Um, no. Not that.”

“Oh,” he said. And a few seconds later, “Me too.”

The conversation that had been strained before now died completely.

Raindrops plopped onto the leaves again. Without a word, Sam and the colonel got off the blanket and put it over their heads. They settled a couple inches away from each other, but they couldn’t go far.

She really wanted to lick him. 

“How long until dawn?” he asked.

Sam shivered, not entirely from the cold. “At least ten hours, sir.”

She heard him shift his legs again. She had a feeling that if she could see him better in the dark, she’d see something she shouldn’t.

“The sniping might have been better,” he said eventually.

Sam thought it was a tossup. She tried not to squirm. It was especially difficult with him staring at her. She raised her eyes to his in the shadows, and he jumped, apparently just realizing what he’d been doing.

“So, uh,” he said quickly, “how about those Sox?”

She could have kissed him, except she couldn’t. “White or Red?” she asked. She really didn’t need to.

The colonel faked a gasp. “Carter! White, of course!”

“I don’t follow baseball much until the playoffs,” she admitted, but she clung to the topic like a life preserver. “I like to watch, though.”

There was a brief silence beside her. Then he said, “Live games?”

“We used to go see the Orioles when I lived in Washington.”

“Camden Yards,” he said. “Now there’s a ballpark.”

“Yes, sir,” Sam said, having used up most of her knowledge. She was much better with football, but the colonel claimed it wouldn’t be a sport until they put it on ice.

“We’ll have to catch a game sometime,” he said, leaving Sam to picture the two of them in the bleachers, baseball caps and beer, sitting as close together as they were now. But he quickly realized his mistake. “Teal’c needs to learn, anyway.”

Sam slouched down on the wall, trying to find a position that wouldn’t constrict her tender ribs, and her knee accidentally jostled his thigh.

“Carter! No fidgeting!”

“Sorry,” she said. Her knee felt bright and warm. The colonel aimed his legs the other way and hugged himself with his arms, putting a little more distance between them.

Silence resounded under the blanket.

“Do you, um,” Sam said, “do you have any interesting plans for the weekend, sir?”

“No,” he said quickly, and gratefully, Sam thought. “You?”

She could think of a few things she’d like to be doing. But, “No.”

His feet twitched again and he rearranged his arms around his torso. “They still working on your house?” 

“Ugh,” Sam said. “Yes.” She had a small hive of builders fixing her windows, her doors, her basement, and the guest room floor, after the NID had stormed in. Orlin’s makeshift stargate hadn’t fit up the stairs, and Sam was left with a mess.

“Sorry about that,” he said.

“Not your fault, sir.”

More silence, in which Sam swore she could feel a field of electricity between them, zapping back and forth. Finally the colonel said, not looking at her, “Do you miss him? The glowy guy?”

Desperation, it seemed, could make him talk about anything. 

“Orlin,” she said automatically. It had only been a couple weeks and she knew Colonel O’Neill remembered the name. “I don’t know. A little. He was … interesting.”

“Interested, you mean?”

Sam faced him with a quick jerk of her neck and felt her eyebrows climbing. Of all the things she’d never expected him to bring up. 

“Yeah, that was a little weird,” she said. Especially in hindsight.

“You do seem to have that effect on aliens, Carter. I think you should work on that.”

“Right, because no alien’s ever been interested in you,” she snapped. Then she shut her eyes for a second. She knew he hadn’t meant that the way it sounded. “Sorry. That was out of line.”

“There’s a lot of that going around,” he said.

Sam smiled despite herself. His voice, in the dark, did nice things to her insides. “I wasn’t, if that’s what you’re asking. Interested.”

“Was I asking?”

She actually thought he had been. But she didn’t question it, mostly because she liked the implications. She let her shoulder brush his again, and he didn’t object.

“I did learn a lot from him, sir,” she said.

“Aliens in love,” he teased. “Fascinating.”

Sam felt it was safer not to comment on that. She said, “I didn’t get a chance to study the stargate before it was sent to Area 51, but I have a list of the materials he used.” A list that had cost her nearly half a year’s pay. “As soon as the builders are gone I’m going to give it a shot.”

“Give it a shot? You mean build one?” She could tell by his voice that he was impressed. “You can do that?”

“I hope so,” she said.

The colonel fidgeted a little. “That’s amazing, Carter.”

“You might want to wait to say that. It might not work.”

“It will,” he said.

The overwhelming urge to lick him returned. The back of his knee, Sam thought; the hollow of his pelvic bone. His Adam’s apple, which she could just make out as he swallowed. 

“You know,” he said, and paused. “Maybe we should have taken you more seriously when you first saw him.” 

Sam met his eyes and held them, giving him a small smile. She’d never say so aloud, but his disbelief had stung, one more small sign of how far apart they’d grown.

Colonel O’Neill smiled a bit, too. She could see his teeth. “Look, next time everybody thinks you’re losing it, I promise not to think you’re losing it, okay?” 

He squeezed her hand, and she felt it in all sorts of places she shouldn’t. By the way he pulled back, she assumed he felt it, too. “The Egon are trying to kill me,” he groaned.

She stayed very still. The rain died off, and they lowered the blanket, carefully keeping their distance.

“Maybe we should try to get some sleep,” she said. She checked out the sky again. “While it’s clear.”

“Yeah. That.” He coughed. “That’s probably a good idea.”

Neither of them moved. 

“Here,” he said finally. “You take the blanket. I’ll take first watch.” 

Sam didn’t trust herself to speak, so she just wrapped up in the dry side of the blanket and lay down. She was practically fetal for warmth, her back to him. She didn’t think she could sleep; she was too attuned to his presence in their few feet of space. But she could at least rest a while.

She concentrated on her breathing, let it slow, tried to blank out her mind. Listed the Fibonacci series, starting with one. She’d always been good at this game at school. One plus two is three, two plus three is five, three plus five is eight, five plus eight is thirteen. She grew a little warmer, and though her body was still very aware of the colonel’s, she almost convinced herself that it was nothing more than the near-magnetic force that drew her to him every day.

And then she felt it — two fingers in her hair. They traced a line from her forehead to the base of her skull; rested there for a moment, and started again. He must have thought she was out. 

Her scalp was white hot where he touched it, her cheeks burned, and there was worse, much worse, elsewhere. But she couldn’t tell him to stop. She didn’t want to.

He did anyway, after a few minutes. His hand disappeared and she heard his clothes rustle. She felt the loss of warmth at her back, listened as he retreated to the farthest corner, by their latrine. Then he started what sounded like jumping jacks. The air from his movement was cool on her face. 

Maybe talking would be better than sleeping, after all. Sam sighed and opened her eyes. “Sir …”

“You’re not here,” he said, still jumping. “I can’t hear you.”

“What?” 

The jumping stopped. “I’m trying to pretend I’m alone, okay, Major? You’re ruining the effect.”

“Oh,” she said. “Is it working?”

“Not sure. I’ve only been at it for three and a half minutes.” He dropped and started pushups. She could see his boots by her head, and she pictured the toned muscles rippling under his uniform. “Would you just get some sleep already?”

“Sir, I –”

“Carter!” His voice softened as he stilled. “ _Please_ ,” he said. Begged. It was more like begging.

She closed her eyes and heard his hand smack the wall.

***

Sam woke to something warm behind her. Her nose and her legs were very cold; the colonel must have been freezing if he’d let himself lie next to her on watch. He hadn’t even woken her for her turn, though the sky was just starting to fade to gray. 

She rolled over, tucking the blanket around him, and pressed her chest into his back. Sniffed his neck, not daring to dip her nose to his skin; she knew he was awake.

“You’re really lucky we’re not facing the other way,” he said.

“Lucky,” she agreed sadly. She sat up, her legs stretched out along his spine, her hand on his shoulder. “Sleep,” she said. “I’ll stay up.”

Colonel O’Neill didn’t complain, didn’t ask her to move. Sam resorted to prime numbers this time, mentally urging the sun to rise faster.

The air between them was still electric, though she’d hoped the side effects would wear off overnight. She sat with him as the sky brightened and the first slivers of sun tipped over the edge of the trap, far above. 

She stood, and paced. It had to be soon now.

The colonel rolled over and stared up at her. “You okay?” he asked.

“Not really.”

“Yeah.” He watched her for a few minutes, then his eyes slipped shut again. Sam kept tracing the same path, back and forth, never getting too close to him. It was turning out to be a sunny day, already warmer than it had been yesterday.

When their radios finally crackled with a very weak signal, it took them both by surprise. Sam could just make out Teal’c's voice. “O’Neill. Major Carter.”

Colonel O’Neill sat up, punching a fist in the air. “Yes!”

“We’re here, Teal’c,” Sam said into her radio, as she watched the colonel whip out his zat. “We’re stuck in a — wait, sir, I don’t think that’s –” 

He fired anyway. The beam arced like lightning towards the sky. 

“… a very good idea,” she finished.

“Jack! Don’t do that again!” Daniel sounded out of breath, and the signal was stronger; Sam guessed they were already running towards the zat fire. “We told the Egon you and Sam went home yesterday.”

“Why the hell’d you do that?”

“Perhaps we could explain once we have located you, O’Neill.” 

“We can’t be more than a mile away,” Daniel said.

“Just make it quick.” Then the colonel was up, too, pacing, and Sam stood by the wall, out of his way. 

“They’ll be here soon, sir,” she said.

“Not soon enough!” 

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Then took another as Colonel O’Neill started slapping his thighs, on top of the pacing. “Are you here yet, guys?” she asked the radio.

Half an hour and a few rope burns later, Sam stood on the surface, helping Teal’c rescue the colonel. 

“The bastards drugged us, Daniel!” he called as they hauled him up. 

Daniel was on the ground, looking down into the hole. “I know,” he said. “It was that green stuff that tastes like mold.”

“I thought it was quite pleasant, Daniel Jackson,” Teal’c said.

“Well, you would.”

“Boys!” Colonel O’Neill said from the other end of the rope.

Sam choked back a laugh. So it wasn’t just her and the colonel, then. She’d been secretly worried that they’d stumbled into some fertility rite.

“Oh,” Daniel said vaguely. “Sorry. So apparently, the Egon believe that a man who isn’t a complete ass, basically, is a weakling. And they decided they couldn’t trade with us until they saw our ‘true nature.’”

“Wait a minute,” the colonel said, his voice rising, “those little beady-eyed bastards thought we were wimps?”

“I think their word has more of an implication of girly. Anyway, they gave it to Sam, too, because, well,” and he turned his head to look up at her, “you confuse them.”

The colonel had reached the edge and started climbing out, with Daniel’s help. “She does that to me every day, Daniel, and I don’t shoot her up for it.”

“Thank you, sir.” 

“Anytime, Carter.”

Teal’c helped him out of the harness while Sam gathered up the rope.

“They thought you were very manly, Sam,” Daniel continued. She noticed he was holding one hand strangely. “Manly’s good, by the way.” 

“Wow,” Sam said. “A woman could drown in all the compliments on this planet.” 

“For what it’s worth, Major Carter, I concur with the Egon.”

“Teal’c!” The colonel shushed him, slashing one hand across his own throat. “You don’t want to get her started, believe me.”

“Hey!”

Colonel O’Neill just grinned at her. “Just say no, Carter.”

She gave up on him and turned to Daniel. “What did you do to your hand?” 

“Daniel Jackson’s fist came into contact with my face, Major Carter.” 

The colonel crowed. “You tried to beat Teal’c up?”

“Can we just never talk about this again?” Daniel said.

“I think we’ll have trouble forgetting that one, Daniel,” Sam said as they started to walk. She was thrilled to discover that neither Teal’c nor Daniel smelled particularly enticing, but she stayed far away from the colonel.

“So I take it the negotiations were a bust?” the colonel asked. 

“You could say that,” Daniel said. “You should never have snuck off, Jack. They were very offended.”

“Oh, like I care if _they_ were offended.” 

“You didn’t punch them, did you, Daniel?” Sam said. 

He screwed up his face in embarrassment. “Very funny, Sam.”

The sun was warm on Sam’s shoulders. She tried not to stare at her CO’s ass as he walked ahead with Teal’c.

“Hey,” Colonel O’Neill said. Sam knew he wanted it to sound like a casual question, which it really didn’t. “Did you guys get tingly?”

“Tingly, O’Neill?” 

Daniel looked like he was trying to translate from O’Neill into English and already knew it was hopeless. He turned to Sam for help. 

“Never mind,” she said. “You did ask about an antidote, right?”

Sam didn’t like the way Daniel hesitated. He slowed down, letting the colonel get farther ahead.

“Well,” Daniel said, “they say the effects wear off naturally in about … four … weeks.”

“FOUR WEEKS?”

That was it. Sam was locking herself in her house until it all blew over. It was the only sensible thing to do.


End file.
